Longevity / Longevity Nutrition Needs Evidence More Than Ideology Transcript

Longevity Nutrition Needs Evidence More Than Ideology Transcript

Timestamps link directly to the source video.

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I have a book problem. Yes, he does. Somehow I got fascinated in longevity books and I've read more than a dozen of them over the last 30 years. I blame the great Jack LaLanne who was able to do things at his age no one else could do and I wanted to be like him. I was his caddy on the golf course as a young teen and occasionally he would talk to me about diet. My background is physics so I was naturally drawn to book authors who are credible scientists who run respected research studies on longevity. So of course six of my favorite book authors fall into that category. Three of them have a heavy emphasis on diet while the other three spend more time on factors like happiness, optimism, friends and a sense of purpose. The diets they recommend go by different names Mediterranean, blue zones, pescatarian and vegetarian but their conclusions about diet have a lot in common. I'll let Rose Ann Kenny explain. The centenarian's diet shares many features with the well-known Mediterranean diet. They are 95% plants, high in fish, very low in red meat, moderately low in dairy and eggs, very low in sugars and devoid of processed foods. Actually, I have a gripe about her. She wrote something I did not want to hear. She disrupted one of life's Blast of cold water, hormesis. More about that word later. There are more anecdotal books I like that have aged really well. Dr. Denmark was a

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pediatrician until she was 103 and lived to 114. If you'll eat right, drink right and love to do what you're doing, there's no reason to die. All right, who's the next angel? Unfortunately, if profit is a motive for publishing a book, especially in America, things tend to go sideways. To amass all the best sellers Mark Hyman has published across so many topics, it's my judgment that he's traveled a well-worn path of telling people what they want to hear. David Sinclair is very high-profile and for a long time I took myself to task for not being able to make sense of some of the things he claims but I notice he's very controversial in scientific circles for many of the same questions I have so whatever, I don't get it. And then there are the pop American books that I don't think fare well when fact-checked. Peter Attia has very important things to say about the American healthcare system and exercise but I think when you mostly dismiss a branch of science which has revolutionized so many other fields as he does, it leaves you especially vulnerable to going off the rails with regard to diet. I come out of both Earth Science and Silicon Valley tech where people who understood big data the best came out to be the biggest winners. It's how Google crushed every other search engine, how Mark Zuckerberg built his empire and how Amazon revolutionized online shopping. In Earth Science we had to collect big data on human exposure to chemicals to infer causality for specific human diseases. I think it's harder than nutritional studies because you have all the confounders like diet

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and exercise but you also have chemicals and you can't do randomized trials. I just can't imagine Peter walking into a room of toxicologists and environmental chemists and saying the things he says about epidemiology and being taken seriously by anyone. And I think that's why his ideas about diet have long been all over the place and he doesn't want to talk about diet while the leading longevity researchers have a clear, consistent, simple and confident message that everyone can understand. These two popular books don't seem to pass fact-checking either. I'm just not aware of any scientists who can understand where Dr. Greger gets his ideas. And all that brings me to How Not to Age. This advanced copy landed on my desk four months ago and it broke my brain. I have never seen a longevity book like this and I still can't believe it's possible. It's focused heavily on diet. It's over 600 pages of small print and that doesn't include the 13, 000 references which you access online. I have other fat books of nutrition oof but they were written by hundreds of scientists in their specialty. By the way, the editor of this volume Maurice Shills died at 100. So how do you fact-check a book like How Not to Age? There are some credible whispers online that Dr. Greger wears rose-colored glasses when it comes to plant-exclusive diets. I'll give you an example. Dr. Greger frequently cites Dean Ornish's heart reversal study as proving you can reverse heart disease on at least a vegetarian diet. I agree it's

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a groundbreaking study but only 35 people completed the five-year study and there were other factors like aerobic exercise and group social support, not just diet. I followed Dean Ornish's plan closely but I had a stroke last year. The doctors discovered a genetic defect in my heart plus I had suffered a childhood virus which scarred my heart raising my risk profile for strokes sharply. There's not much doubt that diet and lifestyle reduced my risk profile. The doctors and nurses all said I was their star patient but my rose-colored glasses became a little clearer that day. My worldview is as the data gets bigger and goes from 35 participants to something like 200, 000 as some Harvard studies do, patterns like mine emerge and you discover that life is really about optimizing chances and various plant-dominant diets and various behaviors can do it. So a question I've sometimes had for Dr. Greger is does he have special love for studies where plant-based diets rise to the top because he can't help but root for the home team. I have that question about myself because I'm fully plant-based for six reasons and only one of them is for health. I've never been certain that people who eat plant-exclusive diets live longer than people who eat very plant-dominant diets like the ones leading longevity scientists lean into. However, the more we study it, the more clear it is that we don't live in the world our ancestors lived in even just 50 years ago. I did an episode about that. The animals and humans least affected are the ones eating lowest on the food chain. Knowing

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that, every time I rock out to Material Chemical I'm so sorry if I cracked your screen. Before I read How Not to Die, one of Dr. Greger's previous bestsellers, I checked with Seth Yoder whom Dr. Greger had hired to fact-check it. Seth is ruthless. His fact-checking of Nina Teicholz's and Gary Taubes's books are legendary and go on for pages and have stood the test of time. He works for Red Pen Reviews who write nutrition book reviews. They're highly respected and no book survives a Red Pen Review without Red Pen finding something. Dr. Greger reached out to me. This is like 2015 I think. I think he had enjoyed some of my Gary Taubes, Nina Teicholz's fact-checking and he asked me to help fact-check one of his books, How Not to Die, which I did. Um so I feel pretty confident about uh the things in that book at least. So I decided to interview Dr. Greger in person in Palm Springs and I asked him about fact-checking. So you have 13, 000 in excess of 13, 000 references in that book. Just blows my mind. Who's doing the fact-checking? How much of a team do you we actually have a we have a full-time fact-checker on staff now. Oh really? So we used to do so it started out all Uh well it was all volunteer I think until How Not to Die. Then we started

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paying people. You paid Seth Yoder in How Not to Die. So I think a lot of I know Seth. Oh yeah. Oh really? Oh yeah Oh no, he was so sweet to go through. He's great. He's ruthless too. As a fact-checker he's ruthless. well that's that's the fact the fact-checker you want. You want a fact-checker that hates you. That just gets up every day and be like I'm going to tear you down. I'm going to find a way to show that Dr. Greger is a biased vegan. Oh my god. I mean that right. You don't want people right. Yeah, if they're a fan I don't want to I don't want anything to do with them. That's funny. Um so that's yeah so I think that's why we actually moved to start paying people because the volunteers, you know, were not ruthless enough. Right, they always guilty until proven innocent. Everything. Yeah. When I told Tony I was going to Palm Springs to interview Dr. Greger, she said Not without me. From the very start of Dr. Greger's nutrition career, Tony has rarely missed anything he's said. So this happened. So here we are, my dear. Yep. About to meet my idol. HEY! OH, GOOD TO see you. Oh nice to meet you in person. You're hugging your number one fan girl there. She watches everything, she reads What can you say? When you gave him the preview copy of your book, I'm so excited. I started reading it right away. I read all of it.

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Wow. And um That's a big read. It's a big write. Oh I bet. Yeah. So Tony interviewed him on the 15-minute walk to our hotel room, I interviewed him in the room and she interviewed him on the walk back. I can't imagine an audio book for Oh brutal. That's 600-page book. vocal cords are still a little hurting. Oh yeah. So you already had a very in-depth book, How Not to Die. Why this book? What did you have to say that you didn't say in How Not to Die? Oh, you know, that's a good question. In In fact, uh I think I deal with that in the preface where I talk about how look, there's really no such thing as dying of old age. People die from disease, most commonly heart disease, both centenarians on down, men and women. And so, if people die from disease, why wasn't my book How Not to Die all the longevity book anyone needs, since it just goes through 15 chapters and each of the 15 leading causes of death talking about their role diet may play in preventing, arresting, and reversing each of our top 15 killers? Then, you know, there's this argument that the number one cause of death of men and women is not heart disease, but rather aging, since aging is a prime risk factor for many of our leading killers, heart disease, cancer, dementia, on down the list. So, for example, yes, someone with high

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cholesterol may have up to 20-30 times the risk of dying from heart disease. An 80-year - old has over 500 times the risk of dying from heart disease compared to a 25-year - old. Um and but the reason we talk about cholesterol is because it's a modifiable risk factor. But, what if the rate of aging was modifiable, too? That is what started me down this rabbit hole. And there's this famous paper, this consensus conference paper from some of the top anti-aging leaders in the field, like Longo, Fontana, and Sinclair, et cetera, who came up with a number of pathways, druggable pathways, you know, what what this is for big pharma, you know, what what drugs can we make to slow down aging? And I realized every single one of these pathways could be addressed with diet. Um so, they talked about the, you know, pharmacological inhibition of the pro-aging enzyme mTOR, or the cancer-promoting hormone growth hormone IGF-1, or, you know, boosting some of the anti-aging enzymes, you know, whether we're talking about sirtuins or telomerase or bumping up FGF21. I was like, wait a second, I've seen, you know, diet and lifestyle interventions. I was like, all right, there's the book. Let's do this. Yeah. So, how tell the story of how it ended up being 600 pages

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and not longer? Oh, a lot longer. Over 1, 200 pages. I mean, that's what it actually I mean, so we It was years of work. 13, 000 citations. It was just a monster project. I mean, I had no idea there was so much out there. And I mean, in retrospect, I should have figured it out because I didn't want to just go through all the pathways of aging, but, you know, preservation of all our body systems, how to, you know, preserve our mind and our hair and our skin and our bladder function. And I mean, you know, go through every single one of the systems, go through all the blue zones, go through Yeah, so it was just a monster project. And by the end, it was not just too long, it was twice the length that they would publish. Um so, they just I mean, they just can't publish a 1, 200-1, 300 page book. That was the problem. My I just could not Um and so, originally, I was like, let's split it up into two books. It'd be like two volumes. In fact, How Not to Die in Japan, some other countries, is already two-volume set. Like they they don't like publishing big books for some reason. Yeah. So, I was like, great, look, and now you got two books to sell. What's the problem? So, what I ended up doing is basically taking half the book, hundreds of thousands of of words, and make it into videos, special videos, linked to them in the book, which cover all that material. So, um basically, you know, just to kind of show my work. And so, all the kind of bottom line recommendations are still in the actual copy. Um but, if you want to know how I

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arrived at those, you know, I want to go through the you know, evidence base for everything I say, but I, you know, 600 pages of that explanation had to be put online into videos. But, all the videos will be there, so people can go as deep as they want. Um and so, we could get it down to 600 or so pages. Did you have an audience in mind when you were writing the book? Well, I mean, I assumed kind of middle-aged folks who are just starting to, you know, notice, so, you know, men who started, you know, getting some prostate problems or losing their hair or, you know, women going through menopause. Your body is changing, what can we do to forestall some of those changes, to actually get healthier as we get older? Um so, that's why I saw I I did not imagine giving this in in high schools. Um and then, of course, I had the medical audience. I mean, you know, I wanted to be able to Yeah, so all the technical terms and everything would make sense to them. really want I mean, it was a tremendous learning experience for me. I mean, some of the key concepts in the book, um like microRNAs, were not even discovered when I graduated from medical school. They did not exist in the world. And so, I had never learned anything about them. And so, it was really learning from scratch, but that was great cuz then I could pass along that huge, you know, activation energy step of uh you know, of going over the hump and learning everything. And then I was like, ah, I

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got to share this. This is exciting. So, in the first section of the book, you tackled the main pathways of aging, and you weren't afraid to use technical terms. And was that a good decision, do you feel like? Well, of course, I mean, how could you not use the real terms? I mean, I explain what the terms are, and I try to, you know, make it as easy to understand as possible, but this is the science. I mean, it is That is the kind of the nerdy section of the book. Yes, it is. It's definitely the nerdy look at at the end of each section, I give the like bottom line, this is what you should do at your meals. I love the little summaries. You know, here are the steps. jump to Look, you don't want to learn about this? Fine. Go to the steps. want to know the why? Just jump to the what, you know? And just be like, oh, I guess I don't know why I'm eating this particular berry every day, but hey. And look, if you want to know, I mean, I love all that going deep in the weeds, but look, if you if you're like, I don't want weeds, give me the fruit. Yes. Did Do you think people are going to find the chapter headings in the first part a little bit intimidating? You know, you're talking about sirtuins and mTOR. See, if I saw those headings, I'd be like, ooh, what's that? I've never heard of that. I want to know all about that. Um you're right, maybe some people are like I mean, I think just the heft of the book would be intimidating to some people. Um which is a problem in and of itself. Um it's funny, when I was doing the when I was running into similar problems

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with the weight loss book, How Not to Diet, my agent was like, nobody Um you know, I mean, uh but, at the same time, I wanted to include everything. It's got to be the reference book. Like that there should not be a single topic, a single supplement, a single food, single anything that in the entire literature that I don't cover. I mean, think that's what people were expect from me at this point. Yes. Um if they want just like fluff, they can do some Oh my god, go to the store, go online. You want fluff that There's an unending mountains. I may have gotten it wrong, but at least I cite all my sources. And some people like, this is exactly where to find it. Um you know, I mean, there's always the, you know, uh the citations button under all my videos with links to all the direct sources. And so, at least, you know, I mean, it's just, you know, at least I'm showing my work. All right. And hopefully, it's the kind of book where, you know, it's like How Not to Die. If you just care about diabetes, skip to the diabetes chapter. You don't want to learn about Alzheimer's or anything, well, fine. Same thing with this. It's like, oh, I don't want to know about that, just tell me about the Oh, I heard about the Okinawans or I heard about the whatever, or oh, I just care about my how my skin looks. I'm just going to go to this I just care about the preserving your sex life chapter. I'm just going to go straight there. Let the rest of it activate. Um and so, it's it's all sections, subsections. So,

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hopefully, you can read it in little bits. You don't have to read it all the way through, you know. And I love your your little clever titles. I Your sense of humor. You know, it's funny, some most of the some of the titles are puns. It doesn't come through on the audiobook. So, I'm saying like, berry treasure, and of course, it's Oh, berry. But, of course, it's not buried treasure. They're like, berry treasure, what the hell is this guy talking about? Oh, you're right. But, you know, what are you going to do? There's nothing you can do. No, but you're you're totally right. I never thought of that. Yeah. I I did not think So, um when you were Did you ever come across new things when you were writing this book that you didn't know when you wrote How Not to Die? I mean, not just like new foods, new supplements, but entire new areas of medicine. Um like in in How Not to Diet, chronobiology, I learned about chronobiology, which I had never learned about. Um the powerful circadian rhythms play in all sorts of disease processes and how we can kind of manipulate them um for like time-restricted eating. All right, so that was a whole new field to me. That was probably the big thing in How Not to Diet. In How Not to Age, oh my god, there's so much that I didn't know. And in fact, I mean, I went in thinking one thing, and then so many things did 180. Like totally, I was like, oh, I assumed I was going to recommend this. Oh oh, in fact, I have videos recommending IT. OH MY GOD, I GOT TO GO BACK, SWITCH ALL THE VIDEOS. Oh my goodness. Cuz there's new stuff, you know.

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So, you have 11 aging pathways in part one. If you had to pick the most important for people to know, if you just said, okay, just read this one. Oh, well, you know, the per - may - perhaps one of the most I think epigenetics is the most interesting one. It's just really fascinating, but it's not the most impactful in terms of you just want to know one for health. What would be a good one? Um autophagy has an I a lot of good practical to do's, not just every day, but every meal. And so there's a lot of good practical takeaways, so that's why I like that chapter. But, you know, in terms of probably in terms of like, you know, what's actually most important, it'd probably be the mTOR chapter because it's just mTOR everything kind of comes back to that. Um Uh yeah, And so then, uh you know, that's really followed up in the anti-aging. My anti-aging eight with uh protein restriction in terms of and particular methionine restriction, restriction of the amino acid methionine, um which can uh which, you know, can play a role in every single one of the ant - of the 11, but certainly those pro-aging uh enzymes are central. So you also throw in there sleep, exercise, stress, etc. Are any of

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those more important than diet? We think no. Not even uh I mean not even close. In fact, I mean there's controversy. Oh, I mean controversy over whether sleep and exercise affect longevity, period. Uh I mean there's tremendous data suggesting exercise is a as has a variety of of health span effects, but is actually affecting your lifespan is actually surprisingly controversial. Same thing with sleep. Uh which is so difficult to study. Um Uh and then, oh, and then stress. Totally. I mean, yeah. I mean, um people have this idea that stress is going to uh impair their lives, and I give them that those great wartime deprivation Yes, illustrations, and it's just like, well, if that doesn't convince you, then what will, right? Yeah. Yep. That actually came from McDougall. McDougall teed me off to those, and then it's really fun to look in that deep do a deep dive in the primary literature. Michelle is here. Hello. Oh, it's good to see you. You look fantastic. All right, let's do this. here working, and she needed a place to stay, and we've known her for quite a while. Aw, wonderful. That's so nice. So uh this has been a big character test for you because for the audience who doesn't know, we had Dr. Greger and I fussed over, you know, all the lighting and the setup and

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everything else, turned the cameras on. We interviewed for 20 minutes, and then my stomach started turning, and I thought, I turned the power on, but I didn't start recording. And I had to break it to Dr. Greger that uh it was terrible. I thought I was going to die. And I thought Dr. Greger would punch me out or storm out of here and say, that does it. I'm interviewing with NPR because But no, you offered to come back in your busy schedule. Of course. Happy to anytime. I'm a big fan. Well, thank you. And the other thing that was going on is you've been narrating this audio book. How many hours did that take you? Oy. So um it was over 40 hours. 40 hours of Yeah, bro, so lots of slippery elm bark and licorice tea. In fact, I was concerned that I might actually OD on licorice tea cuz you can actually screw up your antidiuretic hormone. You can actually overdose on licorice. I didn't know that. And cause a hypertensive crisis. And and I had to like do some math and be like, I got to Am I really going to hurt myself doing it at a bag every hour? Well, that would make headlines. That would be Health doctor dies. Hey, herbal tea overdose. Herbal tea. How not to die author killed by herbal tea. Yeah, that would be fun. Uh yeah, no, but and so I think the final cut will be about 30 hours. It's going to be a long book, but um uh I'm you know, I'm glad I got the

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opportunity to do it, and you know, I can't imagine anyone else, you know. Oh, the book is huge. Well, and your voice is great, and it's associated with your videos and everything, so and your sense of humor is so good. sometimes I laugh out loud reading your book. You got a section, can you cook Cook the crap out of meat, right? Talking about it, yeah, endotoxins. Yeah, that's crazy. Explain your shirt. The answer is no. Yeah. I mean, from a food safety point of view, but not So uh talk about your shirt. You must be sponsored by Big Broccoli. Yes, I don't get my my monthly check from Big Broc without uh you know, pimping out. You know, they see me wearing kale. I'm I'm I you know, um no, I this is uh a consequence of me being public about my all my contact information. I you know, I give my And so with my address out there, people send me wonderful things. They send me broccoli shirts. Yeah. They see one broccoli shirt, and then they're like, he must like broccoli shirts. So they send me I just get So I have like I must have 10 broccoli shirts. Wow. uh yeah, it's um it's yeah, it's it's very easy to poison me. Just send me some cookies, and I'm like, woo. Well, yeah, but the carnivore doctors often say that plants are trying to kill us. They're poison. Plants are, yeah, exactly. Well, look, they don't want to get nibbled. Yeah. Um I mean, they want to they want us to eat their fruit, perhaps, spread around some

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seeds, but can't be eating their babies or munching on their photosynthesizing organs. So in light of that, why are you suggesting people eat food? Are you trying to depopulate the earth? Oh, the uh I want people to be healthy and long-lived. But how is that possible? Yeah, so well, actually, it's interesting. In the book, I talk about

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I pathogenic kind of molecular pattern, um and so our body really reacts. And so it has this immune-boosting effect. Um broccoli similarly, broccoli puts a stress on the body, and our body in reacting to stress ramps up our our detoxifying enzymes in our liver and our in our airways. And um and so I mean, we have coevolved with plants for, you know, hundreds of thousands of years. And so they come up with a new way to circumvent our defenses, and we've come up with it, you know, it goes goes back and forth. Yeah. And so we've been able to basically hijack or commandeer some of their, you know, antioxidant defenses. I mean, they are literally, you know, out there baking in the sun. Why don't they sunburn? Why isn't their DNA damaged? That well, they're they're photosynthetic they're I mean, right, they are just packed with antioxidants, right? And the chlorophyll is just packed because there's this firestorm of photosynthesis baking all day long. Um and think of, you know, a fruit sitting out. It's it's not in a fridge. It's baking out in the orchard. How does it not rot? Well, it must be filled with all these, you know, antibacterial components and all that. And so we can you And so basically, um you know, the the same, you know, we can kind of take advantage of the fact that they are, you know, kind of nature's chemistry set. You know, I mean, you know, we can kind of run away when there's, you know, some kind of environmental stressor, but they, you know, we can go in

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the shade, they are the shade. There's no way all they So they make this, you know, this multiplicity of chemical defenses that we can then take advantage of because we have very similar There's heat stresses, there's oxygen stresses, I'm meaning the same signaling pathways. They make aspirin for a very similar reason that we can take advantage of it. They fight off bacteria. Um you know, the the you know, fungi make antibacterial compounds, bacteria make antifungal compounds. Um and so we can take advantage of it. So that's what the xeno is from xeno or alien or other. So it's like we are using their compounds. Let them get all stressed out, um and then we can take advantage of those kind of anti-stress compounds, um which act very similarly in our body. Fascinating. So Seth is one of the reviewers for Stephen Guyanese Red Pen reviews the book He's ruthless for those guys. Every now and then I get him on and I interview him about Gary Taubes or Nina Teicholz or something like that and he uh he's just so accurate and he just doesn't let anything get away and so so when I asked him about how not to You have a little bit of a reputation of course from the low carb community that wants to discredit you of well he's vegan so you have to be very careful um about how he talks about the Mediterranean diet or whatever. Um You know, he's a non-smoker. So you know, when he talks about the back uh

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let's not you know Yeah so can we talk about that for a minute because that logic seems to work either way you spin it for them. Uh If you weren't if you were preaching how powerful plants are and you weren't eating a lot Yeah. So you have your choice. You have your choice of either being biased or a hypocrite. And you discount everything that a meat-eating nutritionist says? I mean you know oh so by her logic you shouldn't listen to a word she says because she eats meat. Well I mean it's just like doesn't make any sense. What does the science say? That's all that matters. Now of course if you know of some kind of potential bias you got to look things with a grain of salt you know if something's funded by the Cattlemen's Association you're like all right. I mean but that doesn't automatically mean it's not a good study or is that but it does make you okay how do we set up the comparators I'm surprised that 13, 000 studies passed your test for being solid enough studies. Oh well I mean I I may have cited them because I'm making fun about how terrible they are. I mean yeah yeah this is just the amount of of citations in the book. Oh I I tear a bunch of studies. There's some terrible studies out there. In fact the more you know about the literature it's like that you know Winston Churchill quote about democracy worst form of government except for all the others. All right same thing with the peer-reviewed medical literature.

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Um so much garbage but at least okay there's a little minimum bar to entry so it's not just complete wild west craziness. There's a lot of craziness so you just got to have to you know how to you know in fact I'm going to do a like a 10-hour webinar like probably over a weekend or something on how to read a research paper just cuz it's such a valuable resource and doctors don't know how to do it we weren't taught. Um but there's a great and and you know how to and just basically like these are all the like top 10 sneaky deceptive ways that you can manipulate studies and make it look great and get whatever you know result you desire and then just going through example after example. Okay here's the dairy board this is how they how this is how they show dairy isn't bad for you. Here's the nut board saying that nuts are better than they actually you know I mean and Yeah no so you know over the years I've just kind of accumulated this but but I felt like you know we really need to bring this all together and so I'm really excited about that it's just I mean it's going to be for us nerds but I think it'll be really helpful. I will love it. So on that note I come from geophysics and I had the great fortune of having the the greatest geophysicist of all time be my advisor at Stanford. And he was the Dean of Earth Sciences president of American Geophysical Union the whole thing. And he taught a class on the history of science. I don't know why but physicists like me and chemists were all

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obsessed with Louis Pasteur and Einstein and how did they make their discoveries you know um and in nutrition it just doesn't seem people aren't really going back into the history of nutrition that much. So this latest episode I did I went back into the history of nutrition and showed how wonderful some of these findings have stood the test of time and just the way they were discovered by Ancel Keys or whoever whomever is relevant to today. Anyway what Allan told us what he taught us in that class is there's a million research papers out there you can't read them all don't attempt because that's a form of bias if you're going to try to read all these papers and there's a lot of noise. What you have to do is you have to focus on the landmark papers and thoroughly understand them and that's what we teach at Stanford. So when you go to the electrical engineering department and you're learning about Maxwell's equations there's you spend three quarters on just what Maxwell said about Maxwell and other people about Maxwell's equations the best papers and there's just a few of them. But there's 20, 000 papers out there on Maxwell's equations and most of them are from scientists who have to publish in order to get tenure you have to publish and then you how many citations do you get and how many publications do you have on your CV and so on. No it's the breakthrough publications and that's what Allan had he had a few breakthrough publications that made him famous rockstar in in geophysics. A big part of your book is Alzheimer's. Why such a fat section of your book is Alzheimer's? yeah it's actually the biggest this is the biggest chapter of the book. Um we're actually thinking of

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putting off as a whole entire separate book and how not to die from Alzheimer's um but they didn't want to split up into two books. so well I mean it is the most feared um disease of aging more than cancer do national surveys this is losing yourself right? I'm dementia. I'm losing your mind and so I go I you know so I go through all the causal theories um and basically what we can do to prevent and treat um all the different types of dementia including Alzheimer's. And so I did an episode on Lisa Mosconi who's head of the Cornell's Alzheimer prevention lots of publications couple of books great TED Talk with you know millions of views and all that. And she said a couple of very bold things in there. One of the things she said is the combination of three minerals copper zinc and iron in the environment of saturated fat turns out to be very harmful to the brain. She said that in an interview but I didn't see any references for it. You say that in your book but you provide references can you talk about that? so there was the Chicago I think it's the Chicago aging study that found that high levels of saturated fat and copper together seem to be particularly detrimental to the brain. But I mean saturated fat alone I mean you don't need the the metals you know because you know cholesterol is universally accepted as a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. If you have a

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cholesterol level of 225 or higher you are to 25 times greater odds of developing amyloid plaques in your brains 10 to 15 year 10 to 15 years later compared to you know under a 225 of a total cholesterol. And is the focus on LDL there? Um the focus is I mean we do think it's an LDL mechanism because it's the basically what's good for our hearts is good for our heads is the atherosclerotic narrowing um of arteries. So there's other mechanisms so for example saturated fat is correlated with increased blood-brain barrier leakiness um and you can show an interventional laboratory animal data that you can dramatically increase the leakiness by just you know feeding either isolated cholesterol or isolated saturated fat. Um and then in human studies you can actually show a rise in amyloid protein precursor levels in the bloodstream to sevenfold within hours of eating a high saturated fat meal and the concern is then if you have leaky vessels that can all um that this can then get into the brain. Um but I mean so you know very clearly you put someone on a like a high fat ketogenic diet and within days you can get um a decline cognitive function that literally takes weeks to recover from once you start eating healthier again. And even a single high fat meal um can impair cognitive function within a matter of hours um and this is both for saturated animal fat and saturated plant fat like palm

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oil or coconut oil palm kernel oil these junkie tropical fats found in you know vegan you know donuts and spreads and things like that. So it's that's why um the focus of you know of of anti-dementia strategies when it comes to diet is centering around whole plant foods with particularly an emphasis on greens and berries. Lisa Mosconi in her book Brain Food and the cover shot looks like it's Dr. Gregor's daily dozen you know. She has a master's in nutritional science I think and a PhD in neurology. She said for a neuro-nutritionist the ketogenic diet is a nightmare. She didn't provide a reference and so I'm getting all kinds of pushback why did you include that quote in the book when she didn't back it up. So I've always been interested in what the backup is for that and there's a additional question to that what if you go on a ketogenic diet that doesn't have a lot of saturated fat what if it's avocados polyunsaturated nuts and things like that mono unsaturated things. So that really would be the greatest concern would be the saturated fat content. Um although you know there are that's just one of the many reasons to kind of explain the mechanism why those why long-term vegetarians have up to three times lower rates of dementia in older age. Is it so yes it could be the saturated fat but it also be the you know gerontotoxins these advanced glycation end products concentrated in you know kind of broiled

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baked fried meats. Um or it could be the endotoxins it could be the pollutants that that you know build up the the foods of the food chain. Um and uh and so I mean in the end, you know, who knows, who cares, you know, why it works. Let's eat a healthier diet. Um and in fact uh you know, Dr. Dean Ornish is currently wrapping up a study on trying to reverse the progression of early stage Alzheimer's with the same plant-based diet and lifestyle program that was used to reverse early stage prostate cancer, that was used to reverse heart disease, the number one killer of men, women, and centenarians. For someone who has blood sugar spike excursions uh for example when they eat white potatoes, maybe even oatmeal, do they benefit from going a little bit lower carb eliminating the white potatoes and just watching their glucose monitors so they don't get over whatever it is, 120 or something? Well, I mean the the most important indicator of long-term blood sugar control is actually insulin sensitivity, not the amount of carbs. So you I mean you can eat hundreds of grams of carbs if you have the insulin sensitivity to deal with it as it should normally, right? Um and so by eating high saturated fat diets, you'll you'll decrease your insensitivity. In fact, literally in hours you can show you can infuse fat into people's bloodstream, you can show the increase in insulin resistance, the cause of pre-diabetes, the cause of type 2 diabetes. Put people

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on a low-carb ketogenic diet, within days you can double the blood sugar spike to the same amount of glucose that you would in someone who hasn't been on those high-fat diets. Um and that is really what's going to kind of control your day-to - day, hour-to - hour, um month-to - month, long-term blood sugar control, which is really the determinant in terms of the damages, the ravages of of having high blood sugars your whole life. And so yes, we don't want to be eating you know, refined you know, sugars and and grains and you know, these these powdered starches that um you know, cause unnaturally high spikes, but you know, eating you know, legumes, right? Probably the food group most associated with longevity um is nothing but benefit. So in the saturated fat controversy, there's also the protein Um people like Dr. Campbell would say, well, animal protein, you know, it's a no bueno. And um I mean there are studies that I've read from way back in the 50s uh that say, is it the saturated fat or is it the animal protein that causes heart disease? This is sort of pre the seven country study. You're Shamin and Hillabo, it's a Anyway, uh so talk about protein. You spend a lot of time on it in the book. The nation is obsessed with it, so we need a whole lot more, right? Especially from red meat. that is certainly obsession. Um Uh but no, I mean the an anti-aging diet. I mean really the I mean if you

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any anti-aging diet is really about protein restriction, protein reduction, reducing one's intake of protein down to recommended levels um in terms of you know, boosting after you have 21, the so-called longevity hormone, in terms of suppressing the engine of aging um enzyme mTOR, decreasing IGF-1, which is a cancer promoting growth hormone. You know, I mean these are this is this comes about from reducing one's protein, particularly the amino acid methionine, found predominantly in animal protein. So you can just even if you keep your protein the same, switch over from animal to plant protein sources, you should be able to reduce methionine which is 40% just through that. Um so just as much of the benefits of chloric restriction is actually due to the restricting of the protein, much of the benefits of protein restriction is actually due to restricting just a few amino acids, particularly methionine. So when you put scoops of protein powder in your green smoothie, you're shaking your head. Like not a good idea. Are they just empty calories or No, they're worse than empty calories. We actually want to reduce our protein down to recommended levels, which is 0. 8 grams per healthy kilogram body weight under age 65, maybe bumping that up to 1. 0. But again, you're not bumping up protein, you're just reducing down instead of 0. 8, you're reducing down to 1. 0 grams per kilogram body weight um for longevity, for metabolic health, for reducing

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oxidation, inflammation, kind of across the board. We uh even people eating strictly plant-based diets get about 30% more protein than they need. Um and uh so I mean that's that's But don't they suffer sarcopenia in in age losing Oh, you know, I mean so that's that's a very common myth. But if you there is no benefit in people in older individuals, men and women, to adding protein supplements for muscle strength, muscle mass, or muscle performance, period. Um and this is whether you're sarcopenic or not, whether you have accelerated age-related muscle loss or not, whether you're frail or not, whether you're pre-frail or not, no benefit adding these protein supplements onto adequate protein. Um and so I mean this is just a myth. It's interesting. I interviewed Hamilton Rochelle, who's from Brazil, and he's a protein researcher basically. Good guy, smart scientist. He does a lot of randomized controlled trials and they seem to be well conducted. And he did one on aging where he randomized some groups to have 1. 2 grams of protein per kilogram and another to have 0. 8, and then they exercised them for 3 months, I think. And there was no difference in cross-sectional area of the muscles, strength, none none of it at all. And I asked him and he said, well, 0. 4 extra grams of protein per kilogram just didn't make a difference in older people. But Valter Longo, who you quote a lot, is a respected uh aging researcher. He recommends

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two serves of fish for older people per week. How do you respond to that? Well, I mean he may be concerned about cognitive health. Um so the long-chain So there was randomized controlled trials showing that adding um long-chain omega-3 fatty acids like DHA and EPA can slow down brain shrinkage, improve cognition. Um so there doesn't appear to be any benefit for cardiovascular health, which is what kind of they which is kind of based on the whole kind of fish fish oil myth was based on. Um but but for cognitive health, particularly among those who are older, um I would rather see people get those same long-chain omega-3s from pollutant-free sources. Unfortunately, we've kind of so polluted our world that you know, basically everything eventually flows into the sea. So you know, all the mercury released from all the coal chip plants in China eventually settles into the waterways, builds up the aquatic food chain. So yes, you could eat smaller, shorter-lived fish, lower on the food chain as opposed to the tunas and the swordfishes of the world. Um but uh even better would be to get it from kind of the source, which is where the fish get it from, which is these microalgae, which are grown you know, away from pollutants and just these big stainless steel tanks. have those capsules been shown in in trials to to be beneficial? Yeah. No. So yeah, and so some of these these trials that have shown significant improvements in cognition in older adults were just based on the the microalgae-based DHA. Hm. Interesting. So um

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uh fish eaters would say, well, there's a carotenoid astaxanthin that's in pink seafood, shrimp and salmon and lobster and crabs and things. It's a powerful carotenoid. You vegans don't get it. So what you're suffering. Well, I mean so I mean but there haven't been any studies showing that astaxanthin helps. In fact, there's studies showing high-dose beta-carotene actually shortens one's life, right? I mean it's one of the few like vitamin E like long-term like uh you know, long-term beta-carotene in a pill at high doses um uh shortens I mean you're paying to live a shorter life by buying the supplement. Same thing with vitamin E. Same thing with uh extended-release niacin. Why is that? Oh, for beta-carotene, well, it's probably because there's just the symphony of interactions between the antioxidants. So you know, vitamin C, so it's all about you know, these spare electrons. Um and so you know, vitamin C will you know, will yank electron, pass it on to vitamin E, and basically reduce its energy along the way. And so they all kind of work together. And so by artificially, you know, womping doses of a single isolated one, you kind of may kind of mess up the network. And you know, there are more powerful antioxidants like you know, lycopene for example. And so by you know, by by preferentially doing one or more, it just kind of may mess up the balance and actually uh you know, increase the risk of for example lung cancer, which is kind of the original study that really got people concerned. And so the reason they did this study where they

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randomized smokers to take beta-carotene or placebo is because they found that people with higher levels of beta-carotene in their blood seemed to live longer, seemed to be a really good indicator, predictor of health and longevity, how much beta-carotene you had in your blood. And so they're like, wow, let's give people beta-carotene. People of course Why would did they have it in the palms of my hands? Why? I ate so many carrots. Why did they have it? And how they measured it was they they estimated how much kind of your vegetables and soup they you know, they they ate. So of course, instead of randomizing people to vegetables, no, they randomized people to placebo. And so you know, having high levels of beta-carotene is just an indicator, it's a marker of high vegetable intake. Well, of course people who eat lots of vegetables are going to live longer, be better, but it's not the message of the beta-carotene. And you know, which one of the thousands of phytonutrients is it? Or is it the constantly is it the synergy of all them? Does it have nothing to do with that? It's actually the market the microRNAs or the you so many you know, but you know, you you do these long-term observational studies correlating, you know, healthy food intake with better outcomes and you can do short-term interventional studies with surrogate markers proving the case. Science is there. So, you mentioned lycopene and that brings up cooking because lycopene, I guess, is absorbed better when tomatoes are cooked, right? In sauces and things. Um and cooking is quite an interesting thing because it gets into browning and cooking meat and what happens there. Big topic.

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Uh what can you tell us? Oh, yeah. So there's some nutrients that are relatively destroyed by cooking. So, some heat sensitive nutrients like folate, vitamin C, you can knock off, you know, 10-15% of the vitamin C and in in you know, by steaming broccoli, for example. But, if you like steamed broccoli better than raw broccoli, then, you know, fine. If you wiped out 50% of your vitamin C, then you eat six florets of steamed broccoli instead of five florets of raw broccoli and get the same amount of vitamin C. Um so, basically, I mean, we should eat our vegetables in whichever way will get us to eat the most of them. That's really the kind of the bottom line. But, there are some that become more bioavailable. So, you know, ripe processed tomato packs three, four times the amount of lycopene in your blood after eating something like tomato sauce or tomato paste versus raw tomatoes. Um and there's also the you know, the carotenoids are fat soluble. So, you need to have a source of fat. Um you know, if you just eat a salad with fat-free dressing, you're not going to end up with this wonderful carotenoids in your system as if you didn't eat that salad at all. But, if you have some avocado or some nuts or some pumpkin seeds or something on there, ah, then all of a sudden it makes it to your system. Same thing with salsa and avocado. You're not going to get that lycopene in your system unless you eat it um with fat. But, you didn't mention pouring olive oil on your salad. You mentioned other things like nuts. Yeah. So, I encourage people to get what I call green light sources of fat, which are um from whole plant foods. It's really the best way to get all our macronutrients. So, we don't want protein from pro from protein powders. We don't want, you know, our carbohydrates from table sugar. We don't want our, you know, fat from oil, right?

51:39

We've basically stripped away the nutrition. We're just left with kind of the Um and so, why why lose all that nutrition, right? Why put walnut oil on when you can eat the walnuts and actually get the fiber and the plant protein all the wonderful stuff in it. So, it's just you're you're just robbing yourself of all that nutrition. So, uh I took a liking to Nooch. Ah. And uh maybe Jon Stewart popularized it with his little short and he was he did some skit about Nooch and pouring more on. Anyway, it's very funny. I'll send it to you. Okay. But, then when we had our B12 tested, it ended up out of range high. Um and we were thinking, "Oh, water soluble, it doesn't matter." Um does it matter? Be it out. Yeah, no, I'm not worried about high high vitamin B12. Um yeah, I mean, the uh Our our doctor said, "Don't take B12 supplements anymore cuz you're getting enough B12 from fortified foods or whatever." Uh if you may be. I mean, depending on what kind of nutrient So, not all nutritional yeast is is supplemented with with vitamin B12. It's not naturally found in it. You actually have to add B12 to the growth media for the

53:11

yeast to to take it up. And so, I have a video talking about the you know, the the how much of a you know, twice a day dose you'd have to take of each brand of nutritional yeast to get to to kind of avoid taking B12 supplements. We end with the caveat that those with Crohn's disease and hidradenitis suppurativa should probably stay away. Hm. Interesting. So, grilling meat. So, yeah, so I have a whole chapter in the book how not to age on these advanced glycation end products or so-called gerontotoxins, pro-aging toxins, which are formed um when when basically predominantly components of meat are exposed to high dry heat temperatures. So, I encourage people if they are going to eat meat to move to moist so, steaming, um boiling, um you know, poaching as opposed to baking, grilling, frying, barbecuing. Uh yeah, certainly. I mean, so and creates these these uh um toxins and you can, you know, randomize people to There's variety of ways you can do it. You can So, you can, you know, give somebody um a meal with, you know, you can give someone steamed chicken breast and then with the amount of oil and salt as fried chicken breast and have dramatically different levels of inflammation. Even the steamed chicken caused some inflammation, but more just by cooking and we think these advanced glycation end products are

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there's lots of things toxic things created by by frying process. So, um and so, yeah, so it's important to decrease the pro-inflammatory components and when it's done and really that's you know, avoiding the kind of dry cooked meat products. So, what about browning from just cooking of carbohydrates? French fries, you know, you brown your French fries, you put sugar in your muffins to get them to brown nicely when you cook them and so on. Yeah, so there's actually two different processes. So, there's right? There's the Maillard reaction, which is protein is kind of glycated protein reaction. And then, caramelization, which is straight carbohydrates. Um and so, the browning of straight carbohydrates is not something to worry about, but it's that Maillard reaction. It's those those glycated proteins. This is the production of those advanced glycation end products. And what do they do to you? It's primarily an inflammatory response. So, you can increase your systemic inflammatory markers. And so, there are a few kind of high protein plant foods. So, we don't want to like, you know, Cajun blacken our tofu um because that can increase levels. But, something like uh sweet potato, you can roast and you know, hardly makes any difference in baking apple, it doesn't really matter. Um and then and that's separate from the heterocyclic amines which are created by the creatine in muscle. Um exposed to those same high dry heat temperatures, which is a breast carcinogen and So, what happens when you

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brown your toast? So, browning toast, then we're talking about acrylamide. So, uh crispy carbs, so high dry heating of carbohydrates can lead to the formation of acrylamide, um which appears to suppress autophagy. This kind of house cleaning mechanism in our cells. Um and so, I encourage people to decrease their intake of acrylamide found predominantly in French fries and potato chips. So, it's really the highest levels. I encourage people to stay away from those foods. Um but in general, uh we we, you know, we we want to That's why I encourage people to, you know, not roast their nuts and seeds. Better to have raw nut and seed butters. Um because we're concerned about some of these other products that are produced by heating. Eric Adams and his efforts in New York City. How exciting is that? Probably the most exciting thing to happen recently in the movement. In terms of actually putting this into practice, yeah. So, Michelle McMackin is out there and She is, absolutely. She's running a prevention center at one of the hospitals, yeah. No, all the public 11 public health hospitals. Amazing. In New York City. Default plant-based, right? Largest, you know, like, you know, public hospital system in the country. If they can do it, anyone can do it. Um in fact, there was just a paper coming out there was just a article about it. 90% of the patients are sticking with the plant-based option, the default, right? And healthy food in hospital, what a concept, right? You know, just as hospitals were actually the first workplaces to get rid of smoking and to get rid of smoking, you know, tobacco

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vending machines, etc. and led the way in many ways, um they can do the same thing here. So, I'm excited to see that kind of replicated around the world. Yeah. Turned out to be a good question. I wasn't going to ask him. I thought Yeah. No, that's great. No. In fact, I'm actually going to launch How Not to Age at Gracie Mansion. Oh, really? At the the governor's residence. I mean, excuse me, the mayor's residence Fantastic. York City like December 6th. I guess his situation was pretty bad. Very advanced type 2 diabetes. Losing his vision and everything. 30 lbs over what he where he is now. he looks like a million dollars. great. Wow. He was losing feeling in his feet, too. It was terrible. That our son-in - law is a family physician. He says that feeling is hard to get back. is. So, Dan Buettner just released a four-part series on the Blue Zones on Netflix. yeah, very very cool. No, I didn't buy Oh, yeah. Oh. But, let me tell you, it's the fourth part that's the most awesome. Oh. Because the first three parts, they go over the Adventists. Well, I know a lot about the Adventists and you do, too. And Ikaria and all those places. Um and there's some new information in there like centenarians in Sardinia or Ikaria, I don't remember, that live at higher elevations do better. Ah. They have higher percentage of centenarians. Oh. And they had an epidemic on this It It's the grade. They're walking up steeper grades. Yeah. Steeper grades.

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It's not that they're walking more. And it's not the thinness of the atmosphere and cuz it's not that high. It's that they the grades are higher and it gets their heart rate up a little more. But, it's the fourth episode that's so awesome. Marion Nestle's in that episode. Ah, wonderful. We both love Marion Nestle. And um uh and it's him putting putting this into use in American cities. Oh, nice. And because my feeling watching the first three episodes is I know most of this. Um I'm learning a little bit here, but it's fading. Grocery stores are invading those places. Oh, yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. They're Obesity is rising. They're eating chips and everything now. And uh so all except for the Adventists um are Okinawans are no longer healthier. Exactly. And um uh but he asked himself, "Can this work in the United States?" And he took some of the principles and applied them to the United States. And I thought, "Am I talking to Dan Buettner? Am I talking to Michael Greger? Why aren't they collaborating?" You know, because it's the same basic principles. Oh, fantastic. Yeah, he's doing great work. Yeah. Get out and move, social community, and all the things that Yeah, It's just it's such a great series. I hope it does well. Oh, me, too. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, they're not turning into blue zones, but they are improving. Hey, you know, it doesn't take much. In fact, you know, that was something That's where the the conclusion of the book of how not to age is, you know, after going through

1: 00: 42

hundreds and hundreds of pages of all the little minutiae, all the things you can do at every meal, all the little spices and things you can add, and then it's like, "Okay, let's take a step back." You know, most of the benefit, like 80% of the benefit, is just super simple, basic, common sense lifestyle. Like just this many fruits and vegetables, just walking this much a day, just not smoking, just being normal. And you're 80% there. Now, look, you want to go to the 20%? Here's the book, and you can go crazy with the little But, you know, let's not be intimidated. Let Really simple basic things can literally mean, you know, a decade of life. Easy even starting, you know, late starting late in life. So, I thought I made a breakthrough in understanding marbled meat um because the cattle farmers are breeding AI-driven They have AI-driven programs to breed like the Angus breed to have intermuscular fat, which allows them to sell their meat at a higher price, choice and prime cuts of meat, and so on. So, like McDonald's hamburgers are 64% meat now. And Tera Fazzino at University of Kansas 64%? 64% fat. I don't know what I said. Um Anyway, uh so Tera Fazzino at University of Kansas runs the addiction center. She said, "Wow, a lot of symptoms of addiction with food." Um and she did this study of uh how food how much how likely foods are to be hyperpalatable now compared to 30 years ago. And with meat-based dishes and flour-based grain-based dishes,

1: 02: 12

they're 30 times more likely to be hyperpalatable now, and it doesn't require any carbs with meat anymore because you just need greater than 30% fat and a certain weight of sodium. That's all it takes. Well, we've gotten meat up to 65% fat now. It's not really a low-protein uh high-protein food anymore. And and uh no more do you see a kind of a greater rise than with chicken, actually. So, 100 years ago, USDA 2% of uh of chicken was fat. Now, it's over 20%, 10 times more fat, more calories from fat than protein um in chicken because they've so been so kind of genetic genetically manipulated to put on so much of weight. Um and then they go and inject salt water into the meat to actually to kind of artificially inflate the weight cuz it's sold by pound. Uh such that the number one source of sodium um in the United States from the ages of 30 and 50 is chicken. I mean, they don't even think of it. And they can they don't have to say it on the label. It can be all 100% all natural, and it's filled with salt and phosphate additives. Um and people don't think They're like, "Oh, I'm trying to low-salt diet, so I'm not eating like potato chips or pretzels or something." No, it's actually um and then under 20, it's pizza. So, these hyper-sweet, hyper-salty, hyper-fatty foods, and the only, you know, solution is you just got to, you know, stop numbing your palate. Um and then a few weeks later, all of a sudden, normal, natural foods actually taste good. It's not a lifetime of

1: 03: 42

deprivation. Once you get over that hump, and your natural taste come back, then all of a sudden, normal, natural, healthy food tastes delicious. So, you get the best of both worlds. Taste great, and you get to live longer. That's what plant-based eating is all about. I have never not recorded. I'm honored to breaking. I'm honored to be You have sections on various diets, like the Mediterranean diet, which gets a lot of publicity as being the very best. But, you are whole food plant-based. And are there specifics about the Mediterranean diet that you think are not as good? Uh well, I mean, if you actually, you know, these Mediterranean diet studies are based on various Mediterranean diet scoring systems. So, no one actually eats the Mediterranean diet much anymore even in the Mediterranean. You know, it's based on this kind of earlier last century diet on the island of Crete. And so, it's like, "Well, how Mediterra - Mediter - Crete-ish of a diet are you eating?" So, if you actually use that scoring system, who has the best scores? Who's eating most? It's the people who are eating plant-based diets, right? Cuz it's Oh, yes. And so, you know, it you get scores if you know, you cut down on dairy, you cut down on meat, you get, you know, you eat more vegetables. Like these are the real kind of, you know, um but, you know, the Mediterranean diet's kind of been bastardized to be like, you know, uh you know, fettuccine Alfredo with olive

1: 05: 12

oil or something. Yes. And so, but the original um diet um was very healthy. In fact, one of the blue zones um two of the blue zones in the Mediterranean. Yep. And so, uh there's a lot we can learn um from it, but some things like alcohol consumption turn out to be not um not beneficial, but, you know, that's what we have science for, to be able to tease out the components. So, that brings up the question of fish because I was under the impression before I really started reading seriously your book that a little fish was fine, and maybe helpful, especially because it's seems to be part of the what was called the Mediterranean diet. Well, you know, in the field of nutrition, things aren't as much good or bad as they are better or worse. So, for example, if you ask a question, you know, "Are eggs good for you?" Yeah. You really have to follow up, "Well, wait a second. Compared to what?" Right? Because food is a zero-sum game. Anytime we put something in our mouth, it's a lost opportunity to put something even healthier in our mouth, right? Mhm. And so, are eggs healthy? Well, compared to a breakfast sausage, processed meat, yeah. Compared to oatmeal, not even close, right? So, like, what do you want to have for breakfast, right? Um and so, you know, are bananas healthy? Not compared to blueberries. So, if you have a choice of what you got to put on that oatmeal, right? Um and so, the same thing with fish.

1: 06: 42

Ah. Um and so, uh you know, is fish healthy? Uh well, compare, you know, is a tuna fish salad better than a bologna sandwich? Yes, right? But, is it better than hummus, chickpeas? No, not even close, right? It has no fiber. It has all these toxic pollutants that build up the aquatic food chain, blah. And so, you know, I mean, we can always, you know, shift our diet healthier and um by, you know, more and more centering our diets around the healthiest of healthy foods, um and, you know, decreasing our intra - intake of of the less healthy options. So, what are your suggestions then for omega-3s? Oh, so omega-3s, so, I encourage people as part of my my Dr. Greger's daily dozen Yep. and How Not to Die, um to get a tablespoon of ground flaxseeds a day. And so, that'll give you um a nice concentrated source of ALA, alpha-linolenic acid, the kind of short-chain omega-3. And our body is able to take those plant-based omega-3s found in flaxseeds and walnuts and chia seeds, and elongate them into the so-called fish fats, the EPA and DHA. Um but, whether or not it does it enough for optimal health, particularly in terms of cognition, not so much cardiovascular disease, um is an open question. So, um in the book, I encourage people to consider taking about 250 mg of algae-derived

1: 08: 13

pollutant-free DHA. And we can really only do that with um getting it from algae. Um and and that's uh part of the brain health. Um as um you know, the most comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis of either fish or fish oil supplements little to no effect on cardiovascular mortality. Um if anything, only the short-chain the plant-based omega-3s had anything to do with uh cardiac protection. So, I think I remember somewhere in the book that increasing the amount of flax, the ground flaxseed, would would be helpful. That more than a tablespoon would be helpful. Well, it depends. Um I mean, it depends on um uh you know, we need to be able to uh There's a basically series of enzymes that elongate, and they can get kind of uh hijacked by by junky omega-6 - rich oils, Mhm. like cottonseed oil, corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, have uh high levels of omega-6 and can actually kind of um uh interfere with your body's ability to to maximize the health benefit from um from flaxseed. And so, if you're eating a lot of junk, you could make an argument, "Well, yeah, you'd want to get more flax, but why not just eat less junk?" Yes. Okay. So, yeah, no, a tablespoon. So, that will give you about So, a tablespoon is probably just fine.

1: 09: 44

that will give you about 2 g of of the omega-3s. So, you talk a lot about spinach, but uh I think I remember previously reading also that we have to worry, especially if you're a woman in my condition, uh we have to worry about calcium absorption with too much spinach, beet greens, and chard, and that we'd probably be better off to to go the kale and um collard root, rather. Oh, well, I mean, the primary concern um with the high-oxalate greens isn't so much calcium. I mean, they don't interfere with calcium absorption of other foods. Like, if you take spinach and kale and put them in a blender and make a pesto, or something. Uh-huh. The The you still get all the calcium in kale. It doesn't somehow like take it away. Right, or right. It's just that it's stingy with with its own calcium. Ah, okay. So, even though spinach on paper, spinach, beet greens, Swiss chard have lots of calcium, it's actually not very bioavailable because it's kind of locked okay. So, it's just If you're looking for a good source of calcium, you want to get get eat any of the you know, low-oxalate greens, which is basically all the other greens. Um but, the concern The major concern about oxalate is kidney stone risk. Oh, okay. And so, you really shouldn't eat cups, plural, Uh-huh. of spinach, um beet greens, or Swiss chard a day. It can increase your risk of um calcium oxalate kidney stones. Okay. So, I

1: 11: 14

probably don't have to worry about the osteoporosis aspect of it so much, as long as I'm not eating too much of the spinach, beet greens, and chard. Um well, I mean, the I mean, osteoporosis isn't a calcium deficiency disease. I mean, I think that's how the kind of dairy industry likes to been promoting it. Yeah. Um but, um I mean, you know, there's you know, you do a meta-analysis of studies on calcium supplements, for example, and you don't see a decrease in hip fracture rates. Um and in fact, may actually increase your risk of cardiovascular disease because those those high spikes in calcium those unnaturally high spikes in calcium um from taking calcium supplements can make your blood more easily clottable. Um and increase your risk of thrombotic events. And so, um so, yeah, I don't recommend calcium supplements. I do recommend You still have to get enough calcium. Um but, you can get it from all sorts of sources. And uh but, the certainly the the healthiest sources are low-oxalate dark green leafy greens, which is all the other greens, which I do encourage you to eat cups, literally cups a day of. So, talk about fluids. I know some Some places you'll see, "Oh, you have to drink more than eight glasses of water every day." And you're In your book, you correctly rightly say you're going to get a lot of fluid if you're eating healthy because of the fruits and vegetables. Oh. Right.

1: 12: 44

And so, you probably don't need to drink that much water. Well, so, yeah, it depends on ambient temperature and activity level, but no. So, I give guidelines. And right. So, the Institute of Medicine says how much water you need to drink every day, but then you have to realize, well, you're going to get a lot of that from food. So, then it comes out, I forget, like 9 to 13 for men cups a day, and I forget it's less for women. I forget the exact range, but um yeah, and hydration's important for whole number of whole host of things. All right. How about carbonated drinks that don't have added sugar, salt, anything like that? They have essence of flavor or something like that. So, is the carbonation itself a factor? Oh, well, I mean, can help with dyspepsia, can help with kind of a, you know, upset stomach. Um what else can carbonation no negative effect. Oh. Well, every dollar you waste buying a can of sparkling water is a dollar you could buy more kale. Probably no effect on on longevity. So, it's the same. It's just ex - expense. I like that. And uh All right. Should we fear soy? Some people are terrified of soy. Uh I So, I mean, you know, if you look at probably the second longest-living population formally described, the Okinawan Japanese, they eat more soy than anybody. Um that was kind of their chief uh protein source. Um and uh it's actually a common protein source of the longest-living population,

1: 14: 15

the Seventh-day Adventists in Loma Linda, California. And so, the two longest-living populations, so, that should just give you like, "Well, wait a second. Maybe this stuff isn't so bad after all." Yes. you can actually do interventional studies to prove cause and effect. You can lower LDL cholesterol, have beneficial effects from um soy food consumption. Can help women cut down on um you know, menopausal so-called vasomotor symptoms like hot flashes and um uh and night sweats, etc. So, that's probably why you you say that soy is the healthiest plant-based milk. Oh, cer - certainly for milk, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, nothing really comes close. Um it's the least processed. So, yeah, unsweetened soy. You I mean, you don't have to drink any kind of milk. I mean, all milk is processed. Better to eat soybeans than to eat soy milk, but if you're going to dr - uh drink a milk, that'd be the best. So, we do a lot of smoothies. Is there anything raw that we should not be putting in our smoothies? Any Anything you shouldn't be putting in your smoothie? Should not be putting in our healthy I mean, you know, like any fruits or vegetables or anything that really should not be eaten raw. Oh, well, um uh agaricus mushrooms Okay. like white crimini or portobello mushrooms shouldn't be eaten raw. But, you can eat raw oyster mushrooms. I don't know why anyone would put mushrooms in a smoothie. We do. Really? Well, you have to But, we we microwave it first. Oh. Okay. We microwave the mushrooms first. Oh. So, then you get like hot

1: 15: 46

mushrooms in a smoothie? Well, the smooth The rest of the smoothie's cold enough to take take away the heat. Well, look, I mean, with frozen berries in it. look if you look at that I mean, I I That was one of the big uh changes in my own diet from writing How Not to Age was increasing my mushroom consumption due to ergothioneine, this uh so-called longevity vitamin, um as well as uh being such a concentrated source of spermidine, which boosts, you know, autophagy, the kind of housecleaning process within our cells. And so, yeah, so, I actually started growing mushrooms at my own house. Oh, wow, that's cool. So, growing oyster mushrooms and um we just uh grew some wine caps. Um so, yeah, so, I've gone out of my way to increase my intake of uh fungal foods like tempeh. Well, sometimes we'll cook them we'll microwave the the uh mushrooms beforehand and put them in the fridge and then use them. Oh, okay. Yeah, so, but again, you don't have to So, you have to cook your shiitakes for a whole different reason, flagellate dermatitis. Cook your morel mushrooms for a whole different reason. And agaricus mushrooms for the agaritine, but all the other mushrooms, you can eat raw, like oyster mushrooms. So, after all that, you may be wondering what Tony and I thought of the book. I'll let Tony go first. At first, I was sort of intimidated by the beginning of the book, all the scientific terms and the physiology, and but I persevered, and I was rewarded

1: 17

because later in the book, there was all kinds of practical, useful information about all kinds of subjects I'm very, very interested in. I often ask myself, "Why do I have such a fascination in books like this?" Part of it is that for some reason, books like this are to me like murder mysteries are to some people. And I got an extra big fix from this one because it is so comprehensive, and I love all the deep dives on things like mTOR and all the references. I wasn't surprised to see Dr. Greger's conclusion on ketogenic diets and longevity, but I was surprised to see his strong stance on protein restriction and protein powders. I'll explain. Anyone who knows my channel knows I've been obsessed with understanding the health claims of low-carb diets. I've reviewed popular books from Doctors Bickman and Noakes, reviewed scientific lectures, and even hosted some bright low-carb scientists. And despite my obsession, I've never been able to find data to support the idea that low-carb diets are good for longevity. On the contrary, as far as I can tell, all the leading lights in longevity research seem aligned to that view. For example, in Nir Barzilai's book, he summarizes this study in The Lancet. The lowest risk of death was for people whose diets were 50 to 55% carbohydrates. For people whose diets were 80% carbohydrates, the risk increased by up to 10%. And for the people for whom carbs made up 20% of their diet, the risk increased by up to

1: 18: 47

60%. Of course, he mentions uncertainty in that study, but as far as I can tell, no one has been able to show data to prove it wrong. Protein is a different matter because longevity experts are not completely aligned on that. I haven't been sure about the answer, so I was fascinated in the section on protein restriction. I'm still working through the references, and I'm not completely sure where I stand, other than for sure very little of it should come from red meat, which I think every longevity researcher agrees to. If you really push me to give an answer on protein right now, I think I would give Stanford nutrition Professor Christopher Gardner's answer. Stop obsessing about protein. Oh my god. So, it's not even the plant versus the animal. Your kids don't need more protein. Anyway, as you can probably tell, I love the book. Now for some cuteness overload. These are rescues. You have five dogs. Five. We We just got a fifth. Wow. You're going to have to give me a photo so I can include it.